GBS WORLD NEWS | WEEK 3 | APRIL 2023

The most favored offshore customer experience (CX) delivery destinations for 2023 were announced at the Business Services Sector (BSS) Forum and Outsourcing Stars Gala. The results were tallied after 712 global interviews were conducted with captive contact center decision-makers in the Ryan Strategic Advisory 2023 Front Office CX Omnibus Survey. India was positioned in first place with South Africa in second, followed by the Philippines and Poland. Egypt and Malaysia tied for fifth place.

Delegates attending the 2023 Business Services Sector (BSS) Forum and Outsourcing Stars Gala in Warsaw, Poland were present to hear the announcement of the top CX delivery locations at the annual knowledge-sharing conference organized by Pro Progressio. The forum hosted over 350 participants, partaking in 17 lectures led by 50 different industry thought leaders. Some of the speakers included Peter Ryan (Principle of Ryan Strategic Advisory),  Indu Badlani (CEO of Staffing Expert) and Radosław Jankie (Partner, Shared Services & Outsourcing Advisory, KPMG). GBS.World was among the group of sponsors and partners at the event.

There was more to celebrate in the US, where the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) achieved notable improvements in its customer service, bringing average waiting times down to four minutes compared to 27 minutes in the previous tax season. A significant boost in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act made these improvements possible. It is reported that IRS employees answered 2 million calls and served 100 000 taxpayers in person.

Jamaican business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, iTel International, is set to expand its delivery capacity in Belize, which will see the employment of 500 new workers. The operator is making a US$2,5 million investment to expand its Belize City facility to a 40 000 square foot (3 700 square meter) complex. By the end of 2024, it is expected that the Belize City premises will accommodate 800 employees.

Over in China, Huawei Technologies has launched its in-house software management system after being ditched by its US IT service provider.  Huawei’s MetaERP (enterprise resource planning system) has been rolled out across 80% of the technology provider’s business units. It is rumoured that MetaERP will become commercialized, competing with the likes of Oracle and SAP.

The largest CX gathering in the Middle East, the E3 Customer Experience Conference 2023, will return for its third edition on May 16-17, 2023, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Organised by Ejtemaat Saudi Arabia in partnership with Saudi CX Association, the conference will share a range of strategies, tools, methods and initiatives operators can use to accelerate customer-centric growth and innovation in a rapidly evolving CX economy.

This week’s successful GBS/BPO partnership

The Canadian arm of Ricoh, a global information management and digital services company, outsourced its printing software update and management operations to Southeast-Asian ITO firm, FPT Software. Despite conducting software updates from the other side of the globe, FPT Software successfully stress-tested and update Ricoh’s printing software. The success was owed to the exceptional communication flows from FPT Software.